> [Mary replies]
> As I read Pirsig, a "pattern of values" of any level you pick is a latching
> of Dynamic Quality into Static Quality. It is one of many patterns which
> support the same value. I guess I don't understand [Arlo's] sentence, "So the
> "inorganic level" is "pattern of value" of a new level above intellect".
If I understand Arlo correctly, he is asking you whether or not the phrase
"inorganic level" is itself an inorganic pattern of values. And put this way,
I take it that it is clearly not the case that _any_ phrase is _just_ an
inorganic pattern: for a phrase to be a phrase and not just a puff of air or
sequence of marks, it must be more than that.
The question is how we put together that truism with other things we know about
static patterns and their interaction. Arlo's trying to get cards out on the
table so the different players in the game know what the other players in the
game are working with, so we can know where we disagree if we disagree (and not
just say we disagree when nobody's quite sure if that's true or not because we
don't know what exactly each other are saying).
First step: what is a "level"? You said that a "level" is not a "concept" and
Arlo is trying to clarify in what senses a level is not a concept. This all
may seem very simple, and people may become very impatient at the seeming
inanity at doggedly pursuing precision at this level of discourse, but when you
are attempting to create a metaphysical system it is _paramount_ to have all
your cards situated just right and to know what they precisely are.
Matt said:
If that is right, what remains, then, are questions about "adequacy": what is
this inadequacy? Arlo, I take it, doesn't see it. I'm guessing it has
something to do with "proper description," and that Arlo's problem is that to
say that "the intellectual level" has a "way to describe" is a misnomer because
I take it that the standard position is that the intellectual level _is_
description, or rather, where description occurs if it occurs at all. I take
it that one problem people might have is that they don't understand what a
non-intellectual-level description is.
> [Mary said]
> Ask a rock to describe a fish. Ask a fish to describe the Democratic Party.
> Ask the Democratic Party to describe the theory of gravity - no, better, ask
> the Republican Party to describe Darwin's theory of evolution. As we know,
> they are trying to superimpose their view upon science. This is the real
> problem. The inadequacy Matt points to. Recursion? Not so much.
"The inadequacy Matt points to"? I was wondering _what_, exactly, you think it
is, so I'm surprised to find myself having successfully pointed at it. I said
that some people "don't understand what a non-intellectual-level description
is." And you list a litany of injunctions that, for these people, make no
sense. And you call this "the real problem." So, to be very explicit so that
we are all on the same page: are you suggesting that the inadequacy of the
"intellectual level" is that it _does not allow for_ the ability for other
sub-intellectual-level entities (like rocks, fish, political parties) to
_describe_?
If not, what are you saying here? And what card are you holding on the
question of "what is a 'level'?" And what, precisely, is the inadequacy of the
intellectual level?
Matt
p.s. Arlo: I didn't answer any of your questions because I take it that we
misunderstood each other. I was thinking I was extrapolating the angle you're
taking. Do you think that's true, or am I just muddying everything up that you
are trying to say?
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